Luck & Devils
by sour gummies
Summary: Two years after the events of "Titans Together," the expansion of the New Teen Titans into a global force has created big changes for bad guys everywhere. The former H.I.V.E. students—including Jinx, defected from the Titans within a year—are back to a life of crime, but said life is harder now than ever before. Villain-centric; no OCs. More adult in tone than original series.
1. ARC ONE: THE OUTSIDERS

**ETA (02/01/14):** After some deliberation, I've decided to change the title of this story from "Demon Marked" to "Luck & Devils." Sorry for any confusion, but I think the new title works a lot better to encompass the entire story.

**A/N: **All characters who appear are DC creations in some form or other, from either _Teen Titans_, _Teen Titans Go!_, or the DC Comics universe and its spinoff franchises. For new/unfamiliar characters, I'll do my best to make a note at the bottom of the chapter providing a bit of info on their canon background. **Geo-Force is** **not an OC**, and, despite how this prologue make it seem, he's also** not the main character.** If there are any "main characters" here, they are Jinx and the original H.I.V.E. students. Geo-Force is auxiliary. Any other new/unfamiliar characters will be explained in due time within the story.

**Arc One, Prologue  
>Title:<strong> Heaven and Earth  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Geo-Force, Robin, Beast Boy, Raven, Starfire, Jinx, Angel, Gizmo, Kyd Wykkyd, See-More, Billy Numerous, Mammoth, Shimmer  
><strong>Summary:<strong> A young man without any memories wakes up to find himself being hunted by the protectors of Jump City, and receives unexpected aid from another group "outside" the law.

* * *

><p><strong>ARC ONE: THE OUTSIDERS<strong>

_Heaven and Earth_

"I don't know what you people want from me," Geo-Force threatened, backing away until his back was flat up against the wall of the building behind him, "but I swear, if you don't leave me alone right now_,_ I'll flatten all of you into the ground!"

For all his words, Geo-Force was far more frightened right now than angry. He could hardly tell if he was living in reality, or some kind of awful nightmare. He had no idea why his subconscious would do something like this, if it was the latter: his day had begun with a rude awakening in the streets of a noisy, crowded city he didn't recognize, devoid of memories and surrounded on all sides by strangers speaking American English. When he had groggily come to, he was half-buried uncomfortably in a pile of dirt and rocks, which provided no clue whatsoever as to how he had gotten there or who he even was.

When he tried to get up, and ask the surrounding onlookers for help or directions, they all began to scream and run away from him. The noise had given him a splitting headache, further worsening his bewildered mood. His mind was a tangled mess of dead ends that lead to nowhere and his body ached like he'd been savagely beaten. He didn't even know his own name, but a part of him could tell at once that this bizarre city wasn't meant to be his home.

That was when the strangers had arrived—the Titans, or so the group of costumed heroes had called themselves. There were five in all, most appearing to be around Geo-Force's age, if not younger. They called out to him like they knew him personally, using his moniker instead of a name, though perhaps it _was_ his name. All Geo-Force really knew for certain was that whoever these people were, they weren't happy with him.

And he didn't want to go anywhere with them if he could help it.

"Get away! GET AWAY from me!" Geo-Force screamed at the Titans bearing down on him, three on foot and the others flying by air. "I told you already, _I don't know_ what I'm doing here, or what these powers are! What the hell do you want?!"

"Please, friend Geo-Force!" one of the Titans called out pleadingly, an orange-skinned woman with fiery hair that had pelted Geo-Force earlier with green starbolts. "We only wish to talk!"

"I don't WANT to talk to you!" Geo-Force screamed, building hysteria clawing its way up his throat along with his boiling anger. "Just leave me alone!"

Beneath his feet, the ground began to tremble.

The leader of the Titans, an acrobat in a brightly colored costume, went pale underneath his mask. "Move! Get out of the way!" he shouted at the others, sprinting in the opposite direction from Geo-Force while the magnitude of the earthquake started to intensify.

The others began to disperse, but the youngest Titan—a green-skinned boy in hues of gray and purple—hesitated for a moment, before stepping back in the geokinetic's direction.

"At least tell us why!" Beast Boy shouted angrily. "How come you're attacking the city like this, Geo-Force? You're Terra's _brother!_ We thought you were one of the good guys!"

For some, inexplicable reason, his words made Geo-Force's panic rise up in full-force. His head pounded sharply in agony, and behind him, the walls of the building began to crack from the foundation upward.

"Don't come near me!" Geo-Force screamed in desperation, holding out his hands to call up a column of solid stone. "Whoever you people are, I don't know this city, and I _don't_ know any Terra! If you don't leave me alone, I'm going to kill you all! Just go!"

At this, he flung the slab forward, knocking it directly into the Titan's side. Beast Boy was sent flying with a yelp of pain, landing several yards away with the building with a noisy crash. His companions, already a good distance away at this point, turned around again at the sound of his yelling.

"Beast Boy!" the grey-skinned psychic called out urgently, running back for her teammate with her dark cloak flying behind her. "Beast Boy, are you all ri—"

Above them, chunks of the building began to fall from the sky, dropping down to the street below with an explosion of dust and noise. "Aaaugh!" Raven cried, throwing up a hand to defend herself and Beast Boy with a telekinetic shield.

Too much. There was too much noise. Too much energy. Geo-Force yelled in pain as his command over his powers began to slip, an unknown force within him unleashing itself powerfully into the deepest layers of the earth. He was out of control.

"Nooooo!" he screamed in anguish, losing his balance as the ground below began to twist and deform. Pillars of rock shot up in jagged formation to trap him in place, solidifying around his body to block his escape. The earthquake was now unstoppable, dust and stone flying in all directions as the terrible pain in his head blinded him completely. "Help me! Oh, god, please, somebody—"

The last thing he registered was the ground caving in beneath his feet to swallow him whole. New, unknown voices began to echo all around him, their words urgent and alarmed, but instead of listening Geo-Force sank gratefully into the merciful embrace of darkness. Oblivion was heaven, compared to the awful pain.

If it were up to him, he never would have woken up again.

—

However, wake up he eventually did. This time, it was to the sound of hushed voices:

_"So, let me get this straight...this guy wrecks half of downtown, and beats the Titans bare-handed by himself...and you guys have the bright idea to bring him __**here?**__"_

_"Yeah! What he said! 'Sides, I coulda done that myself..."_

The voices were talking about him, which was enough to rouse Geo-Force from his murky realm of half-sleep. Groggily, he registered that he'd been laid out on some kind of bed or sofa cushion, covered in blankets that were rather more scratchy than warm.

_"I hate'ta say it, but Billy's with the big man on this one. What's the point of havin' two guys around here just fer wreckin' stuff?"_

Geo-Force heard a girl's irritated sigh.

_"You're all completely missing the point. It'd be a total waste of talent for a guy __**this**__ strong to be wasting away in a jail cell, while the Titans are out here hunting us like rabbits! What, should we have just left him there, to get killed or arrested?"_

_"Jinx is right. Plus, the guy is like, a total babe."_

_"SHIMMER!"_

_"What? He is!"_

The voices were quiet, even arguing, but even so the sounds of them worsened Geo-Force's dull, persistent headache through his fogged-up mind. He did his best to ignore them, and go back to sleep, but found it impossible now that he was relatively alert. Gentle fingers unexpectedly brushed his forehead, pushing strands of sweat-soaked hair out of his face, and that alone was enough to compel him to give up on sleeping.

Reluctantly, Geo-Force forced his bleary eyes open. He was greeted at once by the sight of two perfect, shimmering golden eyes boring into his, alit with impossible brightness and warmth. As his vision gradually solidified, he found himself gaping up into the face of the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen: a slim young lady with fair hair, curly blonde pinned back tightly against her head. She wore a blue and red sleeveless top with a high turtleneck, and a matching skirt, her pale arms bare save for a glimmer of silver bracelets upon her wrists and shoulders. When she saw that Geo-Force was awake, she smiled at him, perfect red lips parting only slightly.

"Good morning," she said to him pleasantly, drawing her delicate hand away from his face. She stood up, causing Geo-Force to belatedly notice a pair of small, white-feathered wings protruding from her back. His mouth hung open at the sight.

"Are you...Are you an angel?" Geo-Force blurted out stupidly, unable to close his eyes or look away from her.

The woman blinked at him in surprise. Then, her smile widened.

"Oh...so you've heard of me?"

Suddenly, there was a great commotion from the other room. "Hey!" a child's voice yelled, high and grating in Geo-Force's ears. "Yo, asswipes! Hurry up and get in here—the freakazoid's finally awake!"

Warily, Geo-Force sat up on his cot to see what was going on. As he watched, a group of unfamiliar adolescents and young adults began to file into the room, all of them in various states of casual dress and costume-wear, the latter type much like what the Titans and Geo-Force himself wore. Many of the group were young, in their late teens at the most, but a few seemed old enough to be legal adults. Something in the way they held themselves screamed out 'trouble,' but Geo-Force stubbornly scowled in their direction anyway.

"Who are you people?" he asked cautiously, not as panicked as he'd been the last time he woke up, but still a far cry from pleased at these turn of events. "Where am I?"

The teens only snickered at him. Feeling a rise in anger, Geo-Force opened his mouth to yell, but was stopped when the group suddenly parted to allow entrance to another figure into the room. The new arrival was so short that it took a moment for Geo-Force to actually see him, but when his eyes finally caught on the shrimp, he was surprised to find a young adolescent grinning up at him with the air of a person used to being in command.

The boy was short and scrawny, clearly youngest of the lot. He might have been thirteen at the oldest. His fine brown hair was cropped short, resting beneath a pair of lab safety goggles. He wore a dark jumpsuit strapped with a metal backpack, and had pale eyes that were lit brightly with a spark of intelligence and mischief. Despite his stature, Geo-Force could see that he was the leader of the group.

"Glad you could join us, rocky," the boy jeered at Geo-Force. "I'm Gizmo. These lame-brains behind me are the guys who rescued you from the Titans."

"More like rescued him from _himself_," another girl interjected from the front of the room. She was among the oldest-looking of the group, and one of its few females, petite and rail-thin with a shock of grey skin and bubblegum hair. "This guy caused a massive earthquake in downtown that wrecked a ton of buildings and caved in most of Main Street. If Wykkyd and I hadn't been out and about when the fight started, GF here would probably be lying in a shallow grave right now."

Geo-Force blinked. "GF?" he asked, before glancing down belatedly at the letter-emblem that was stylized on his chest. "I...oh. It's Geo-Force, actually. At least, I think it is..." At least, he couldn't remember being called anything else. "Thanks for earlier, I guess. I don't know what happened with my powers. I'm _pretty_ sure they usually don't go out of control like that."

The pink-haired girl gave him an appraising stare. "Well, then, 'Geo-Force'..." she said, stepping forward to stand beside Gizmo and gesturing to all the others gathered in the room. "If that's the case, then it's very nice to meet you. I'm Jinx, and these guys here are Gizmo, Mammoth, Shimmer, Billy—"

"I'm Billy Numerous!"

"—_See-More_, Kyd Wykkyd, and Angel. Your resident nurse."

Belatedly, Geo-Force glanced over at the winged girl again, his face flushing involuntarily. She smiled at him with a small wave.

Jinx smiled as well. There was a smirk behind the expression, but also a measure of sincerity as well.

"On behalf of all of us, let me be the first to say that _any_ enemy of the Titans is a friend of ours," she said, lavender eyes gleaming catlike in the dim light. "Welcome to the Outsiders."

* * *

><p><strong>AN #2: **Most of this fic takes place approximately two-and-a-half years after the episode "Titans Together," and two years after "When There's Trouble...", the final issue of _Teen Titans Go!_ (companion comic to the show, not the 2013 cartoon). This story is more serious/toned down than the original series, mainly to reflect the changes of adolescence heading into adulthood. There's some plot stuff mapped out in my head, but mostly it's a focus on the day-to-day lives of the characters. The Jump City Titans, Titans East, New Teen Titans, and miscellaneous villains are all liable to receive focus chapters, in addition to the main H.I.V.E. group. Yes, there will be an explanation for why Jinx left the Teen Titans. No, it will not happen in this chapter. Be patient.

**Character Notes**

_Geo-Force_ – Made one appearance in _Teen Titans Go!_ #51, "Metamorphosis." Older brother of Terra and crown prince of Markovia in Europe. Like his sister, he was experimented on to give him geokinetic powers during his childhood. He met the Teen Titans while traveling to Jump City to find out what had become of the runaway Terra, but decided to leave her in peace when he saw how happy she was as a schoolgirl.

_Shimmer_ – Did not appear in the show, but is a regular accomplice of Mammoth, Jinx, and Gizmo in DC Comics. Shimmer is Mammoth's sister and has the power to transmute any substance into any other substance of her choosing.

_The Outsiders_ – A group of superhumans from DC Comics that has had multiple incarnations over the years. The group appearing in this story is only an adaptation by name, and does not reflect the roster(s) from the comics with the exception of Geo-Force.


	2. Silver Screen

**A/N:** In response to some reviewers' queries, I will **not** be spoiling any pairings/relationships for this story in advance. Canon pairings will definitely be brought up, even if they've already been terminated, but other than that nothing is set in stone. Even characters who do get together in this story might not stay together. That's life. Sorry if this is a deal-breaker for you, but the point of this isn't for Character A and Character B to end up together. It's about who they are as individuals.

Additionally, as noted in the ETA for the previous chapter, the title of this story has officially changed from _Demon Marked_ to _Luck & Devils_. Sorry for any confusion that may have caused.

**Arc One, Chapter 1**  
><strong>Title:<strong> Silver Screen  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Jinx, Geo-Force, Shimmer, Mammoth, Gizmo, Billy Numerous, Angel, Kyd Wykkyd, See-More (mentioned), Paper (mentioned)  
><strong>Summary:<strong> The Outsiders hold a movie night.  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> Mentions of gore, religion, torture, brainwashing, and gruesome death, in the context of horror movies.

* * *

><p><strong>ARC ONE: THE OUTSIDERS<strong>

_Silver Screen_

When Shimmer had first suggested they have a movie night, Jinx hadn't really cared one way or another. Things had been weird around the base lately, between Paper's conspicuous absence and the new guy they had found to replace her. Perhaps a bit of downtime would help everyone alleviate the tension. The latest addition to the Outsiders—the geokinetic, memory-less Geo-Force—was agreeable enough as a housemate, but he'd been having a slow time of settling into the group socially.

Given the others' collective disposition, Jinx couldn't blame him. But it didn't exactly help that the guy could be pretty uptight. When she had first seen Geo-Force causing mayhem in the streets against the Titans, she'd expected him to have a bad temper, or at least an aggressive streak. Instead, it turned out he was just _stiff,_ like the rocks he tossed around with his metahuman powers. The Outsiders were already getting bored of their newest teammate, which boded ill for Geo-Force's safety, and also that of the underground base. Experience dictated that bad things tended to happen whenever Jinx's cohorts got too bored.

So: they'd have a movie night. Perhaps using the big-screen TV wasn't the best idea, what with the base's power on reserve and See-More sick again with migraines unable to repower the generator. But at least it would give the rest of them something to do. Jinx even took the liberty of selecting a genre, horror, as the only other movies she liked were romance and the others would never let her live that down in a million years. She wasn't about to sit through five hours of bad comedy flicks or buddy cop shooters. Gizmo downloaded the torrents in high-quality, and they were set to go.

It might be nice, she thought, to have an evening where they were all safe and out of trouble.

—

The first flick of the night,_ Wicked Scary III_, was kiddie stuff, all cheesy Hollywood monsters and jump scares. Jinx and the others had a good time lampooning the movie's bad writing and CGI effects, which Gizmo claimed had only gotten worse with each successive sequel. The environment they'd made for themselves in the entertainment lounge was laid-back and fun—and, surprisingly, domestic.

The ratty long sofa in the room was gigantic enough to seat all eight of them with room to spare. However, Angel and Billy (and Billy's clones) opted instead for a lone armchair and various parts of the floor and sofa backing, respectively. Angel wasn't paying much attention to the film, curled up alone in her chair and reading a book, but every once in a while she'd glance up to see what was going on with the plot or with the others. Jinx appreciated her being there, knowing the younger girl didn't care much for genre movies that didn't try at all to be intelligent.

Billy, by contrast, was probably the only one of them who was wholly absorbed in the film: he jabbered loudly with his clones about various twists and developments in the plot, until the others finally shushed him out of annoyance. He laughed them off, but obediently shut up, at least until something else happened onscreen to make him forget his resolve. Then the cycle repeated itself.

As for Jinx: she had seated herself comfortably on the sofa, with Gizmo on her right side and Mammoth on the left. She felt content with the sense of familiarity they brought. It was almost like when the three of them were still a team, older memories from nearly four years ago.

Shimmer was nestled close to Mammoth's other side, curling up under one of his beefy arms with a bag of snacks. She was pretending not to jump in fright at every scream-bait sequence, without much success. Geo-Force sat beside her, likely for additional protection (Jinx had noticed he could be protective of the younger kids), while Kyd Wykkyd had perched a ways out from Gizmo and Jinx on the opposite end of the couch.

The movie passed easily in companionable jokes, and other senseless chatter. Even with See-More's conspicuous absence, Jinx didn't feel too bad for him, knowing Angel and Wykkyd had been alternating visits to the run-down infirmary all day. Hopefully, this latest migraine spell would work itself out like all the others. The Outsiders didn't have the money or resources to pay for See-More to see a metahuman doctor, let alone one that wouldn't try to steal his organs during a physical. The best option they had at the moment was Professor Chang, and Jinx wouldn't have trusted that creep to cut her fingernails.

No matter how much he purported to know about xenothium radiation.

When the credits rolled, Gizmo reluctantly stood up from the couch to start the next movie on his laptop. The computer was hooked up wirelessly to the flat screen mounted up against the wall.

"Your pick, cludgeheads," he announced. "We watching _Hellhouse _next, or _Mindcreep?_"

Jinx frowned. She'd only picked the genre of films they'd be watching, not the titles—that had been left to the discretion of Gizmo, Billy, and Shimmer. The latter knew so little about American movies that her input hardly mattered, but Gizmo's taste usually skewed toward whatever he thought would most impress the others. Billy's taste just sucked.

"Isn't _Hellhouse_ that really nasty slasher about the church psychos moving to a small town?" she asked. "Where they abduct a bunch of innocent people for their parish haunted house?"

"Yeah. And then carve 'em up for their freaky Halloween show," Gizmo said with a snigger. "This is the unrated version, too. They had to cut a _bunch_ of stuff to play it in theaters without getting an NC-17!"

"Sounds charming," Jinx said.

"Well, ah'm all for it!" Billy said, slapping his knee with a hoot of laughter. He turned to the clone sitting next to him on the floor. "How 'bout you, Billy?"

"Motherfuckin' psyched!"

Kyd Wykkyd smiled.

Jinx shook her head wordlessly, relaxing back against the couch. Gore-splatter films didn't hold much appeal for her, compared to the complexity of psychological thrillers, but if this was what the others wanted she wouldn't complain.

On the lone armchair, Angel stood up to face the others. She had closed her book and was holding it primly in both hands.

"I think I'll go back to my room for the night," she told them. "I'm not into very violent movies."

"Aw, you're just scared of all the blood and guts," Gizmo taunted, eliciting a crude laugh from Mammoth.

"Yeah, hah. You're _scared,_" Mammoth said.

Shimmer hit her brother lightly on the arm for his comment. "Don't listen to them, Angel," she said earnestly, leaning forward on the couch. "Come on, stay and hang out with us!"

"You don't have to watch during the gory parts, if it grosses you out," Jinx offered.

Angel only shook her head. "It's the screaming I can't stand, not the blood," she said demurely, waving at them as she headed toward the hall. "You guys have fun."

Gizmo huffed. "Pussy!" he called out after her retreated back.

Geo-Force turned to glare at him for that, surprising everyone. "It's her decision. If she doesn't want to watch, then leave her alone," he snapped.

Gizmo scowled right back. "I was only kidding, fuckface!" he said hotly. "Stop taking everything so friggin' _seriously!_"

If that wasn't an invitation to fight, Jinx didn't know what was. To her surprise, however, rather than retaliate, Geo-Force merely sighed in a world-weary sort of way and lay back against the couch. "Fine," he said wearily. "Sorry. Let's just start the movie, okay?"

Jinx had no idea what to make of his actions. Variations on this same scene had played out countless times since Geo-Force's arrival—not always with Gizmo as the instigator, but at least one of the Outsiders, making a game of baiting the older boy through their actions or words. Inevitably, he just conceded defeat, or else walked away from the perpetrator without fighting back. Geo-Force seemed wholly content to let the younger kids have their way, even at his own expense.

Jinx didn't understand his thought process at all. Geo-Force was the oldest, wasn't he? He had to be at least in his early twenties. Why on earth was he so willing to be pushed around by the others? Gizmo might have been the smartest one of the group, and (technically) the leader, but Jinx certainly wouldn't have taken his comments lying down.

Gizmo, it seemed, didn't know what to make of him either. The young genius huffed out something along the lines of "dick-licking snot piece," before ducking his head down to his laptop again and starting up the second movie. When it began to play, he flopped back down onto the couch beside Jinx and watched the opening credits of _Hellhouse_ in sullen silence. She absentmindedly looped an arm across the back of the back of the couch behind him and did the same.

—

The movie was every bit as senseless and violent as had Jinx expected. On top of that, Angel's departure, and the lateness of the hour, seemed to have quieted the atmosphere of the room about as much as the gore onscreen.

Every time Jinx tried to point out how stupid and unrealistic the plot was, or how obviously painted-on the blood, she was met with either the sound of Billy's uneasy laughter or a halfhearted answering joke from Gizmo. Even Mammoth would only give her a grunt of acknowledgement. The film was simply too dark to laugh away like the last one.

Instead, they watched in relative silence. One by one, the main characters found themselves dragged into the titular haunted house, either taken by force or else lured under false pretenses. They were all met with scene after scene of hideous physical and emotional torture and degradation. Jinx found herself feeling a little sick, as she watched a woman being impaled slowly through the stomach with the sharpened end of a cross. Her attacker was howling some bile about the woman not carrying her pregnancy to term, but Jinx didn't feel like anyone was listening to the dialogue. The movie had a running them regarding "sinners" in the town being forced to answer for their various misdeeds, but it was hard to pay attention to any of the plot when the graphic bloodbath onscreen consumed all the viewers' focus.

If there was one good thing to be said for _Hellhouse_, it was that it ran barely eighty minutes on the clock even with the deleted scenes. Before Jinx knew it, the credits were rolling, over a black screen and a wash of total silence. Jinx could hardly contain her sigh of relief.

Around her, the remaining Outsiders slowly stirred to life again. "That movie _sucked_," Gizmo griped with forced irritation, pulling away from where he'd been inadvertently huddled at Jinx's side for the latter half of the film. He reached for his laptop and clicked the movie off with shaking hands. "I've seen better scripts written by frikkin' bacteria cultures! Hopefully _Mindcreep_ is less cludge-sluggin' enough to make up for it..."

Jinx watched him work, feeling an odd, unfamiliar sensation in her chest. Belatedly, it occurred her to that for all Gizmo's bratty posturing, intelligence, and foul mouth, he was still only twelve years old—and even that barely. No twelve-year-old needed to be watching movies where people got skinned alive, or nailed to the walls by their hands. If she had seen _Hellhouse_ at that age, the movie would have given her nightmares for a month.

However, once she realized she was reminiscing, she shook it off, stubbornly telling herself that she was overreacting. Gizmo was a genius, after all; that had to count for something when it came to a person's maturity. Plus, Gizmo was a villain! He'd grown up with bad guys and murderers, just like the ones in the movie. None so horrifyingly psychotic, of course, but it wasn't as though the crazy parishioners could come out of the screen and actually hurt anyone. It was only a stupid movie.

Maybe watching another movie was what they all needed now, to clear out the bad taste of the last one. "What's _Mindcreep_ about, Gizmo?" Jinx asked pointedly, careful to speak in the same unconcerned tone that he'd used. "I heard it got good reviews."

"Yeah, everyone says it's pretty good," Gizmo said, perhaps a bit too quickly, looking relieved to have something to talk about. "Even though it _was_ a total stink bomb at the box office. The movie's about a psycho-alien scuzzbag, who uses his psychic mind-powers to turn people into zombies so they can go out and take over the city for him. Apparently, he's trying to kill off all the humans on Earth, so that the aliens living on his home planet can come over here and take over ours instead, 'cuz their world is one big shithole."

Something prickled uncomfortably at the back of Jinx's thoughts as Gizmo spoke. _Psychic. Mind-powers. Zombies. Take over_.

She couldn't have said why, but something about the premise of the movie bothered her.

Out of the corner of one eye, she could see Kyd Wykkyd stiffen a bit as well, in his seat at the far end of the couch. The younger boy looked perturbed.

But, they were criminals. More importantly, they were teenagers. They all had their pride.

It was all too easy, for them to forget what pride inevitably came before.

"Sounds like fun," Jinx heard herself say, in the same forced tone of nonchalance. She leaned her back against the ratty couch to see the screen. "Let's watch."

—

It wasn't a mindless snuff film like the last one, but all the same, _Mindcreep_ was...unsettling. Jinx found herself fully engrossed by the titular alien, an unfeeling, psychic creature whose actions were every bit as impassive as they were terrifying. None of the alien's victims ever seemed to realize what was coming before it was too late, when they were already helplessly enthralled in its power. A gripping sense of déjà vu accompanied the mindcreep's every appearance, along with its psychic slaves, which inexplicably made Jinx feel as trapped and powerless as they were.

_Run_, she found herself thinking more than once toward the characters onscreen, with the same almost-sick feeling rising in her stomach as before. _Run, you idiots! Why don't you run?_

She knew why, though. A person could run all they wanted, but it still wouldn't mean that they had escaped. Oftentimes, they just ended up in the same exact place that they started.

The bile in the pit of her stomach worked its way up her throat, vision tunneling more and more as the movie went on. She was too distracted by the shadows paralyzing her mind to notice Kyd Wykkyd spending most of the film hidden beneath his cloak, before finally ducking out and teleporting noiselessly out of the room. Some of the others remaining were even worse off than him.

"_Baran_," Shimmer whimpered softly to Mammoth, nervously twisting around one of the metal braces on her wrists. "Baran. Psst, _Baran.._."

Onscreen, the alien mindcreep began to advance toward a helpless and screaming human girl. When Mammoth said nothing, still caught up in the movie, Shimmer continued in a shivery voice, "_Baran,_ I don't...I don't like this movie. I want to go now. Please?"

Orders and insults, Mammoth could usually work with. Unfortunately for Shimmer, anything subtler than that required spelling out. He didn't even turn to look at her when she spoke.

"Wha's that?" he asked distractedly, eyes still glued to the screen as bits of popcorn fell absently from his mouth. "You say somethin', sis?"

"I want to go back to my room!"

"Oh..." Mammoth said indifferently with a shrug, still fixated on the film. "All right, then, go for it. I ain't stoppin' you."

He wasn't picking up on her hints in the slightest. Geo-Force, mercifully, was a tad quicker on the uptake.

"Mammoth," he said loudly to the larger metahuman, placing a hand gently on Shimmer's shoulder. "I think what Shimmer _means_ is—"

He didn't get to finish his sentence: at that exact moment, the base's power flickered crazily for several seconds, and then cut out. The entire hideout was plunged into darkness, movie ending before the mindcreep could destroy his final victim.

Startled by the sudden plunge into darkness, Shimmer screamed aloud. Her shrill voice was finally snapped Jinx out of her disturbed trance, jolting back from the film to the events of reality. Around her, the remaining Outsiders had begun immediately shouting and arguing among themselves, creating a din of panicked uproar that made her head ache. If the events of the film hadn't gotten them scared before, the unexpected power outage was certainly enough to finish the job.

Swearing internally, Jinx leapt up from the couch. _Dammit, See-More,_ she thought angrily to herself as she blindly grabbed for the nearest pair of arms, dragging the two teammates back before they could start running in the dark and get themselves hurt. _Could you have picked any other night to have a stupid headache?_

It wasn't really fair to blame him, though. Or Gizmo and Billy, for that matter, even if they'd been the one to choose the movies. Jinx _always_ had to be the one responsible for the others in the end—the one who knew how to keep her teammates from falling apart.

They'd all been indoctrinated since childhood, to defer to some higher power and obey orders from the person in charge, even at the cost of all sense of self-preservation. By a characteristic stroke of bad luck, Jinx alone had been struck by a damning self-awareness and ambition from an early age. She alone had the desire to be the leader of the pack, instead of a follower. The one the others would turn, to in times of peril.

That obviously didn't make her any good at it. She couldn't even get her teammates through one stupid movie night without something like this going wrong.

Just her luck, wasn't it? she reflected bitterly. Everywhere Jinx went, things were destined to fall apart.

_The Titans should have thanked me when I left._

* * *

><p><strong>Character Notes<strong>

_Paper_ – A H.I.V.E. Academy student who appeared in _Teen Titans Go!_ issues #16 and #43, along with teammates Rock and Scissors. Paper is a metahuman with white hair and eyes, who has the ability to stretch/distort her body's shape like Madame Rouge.


	3. They Took the Sky

**A/N:** I like Angel. She's so lovely in design, and what little hints we get of her characterization are very interesting. I've seen a number different takes on what authors choose to write her as, so in the end I just went with what felt right. Let me know whatever you think.

**Arc One, Chapter 2**  
><strong>Title:<strong> They Took the Sky  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Angel, Geo-Force, See-More, Gizmo, Jinx  
><strong>Summary:<strong> The Outsiders slowly set about repairing their power generator, and one another, in the aftermath of their badly ended movie night.  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> Anxiety, long-term illness.

* * *

><p><strong>ARC ONE: THE OUTSIDERS<strong>

_They Took the Sky  
><em>

They managed to get the base's power online again before long, though not without cost. Angel did her best to keep herself focused purely on the task at hand, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest as she supported See-More from one side, Geo-Force holding him on the other. All of See-More's nonexistent energy had been expended repowering the base's generator, and, judging from the way his body had gone weak and shaking in their hold, it was clear he didn't have any strength left to keep his legs from collapsing underneath him.

Angel tried hard to keep her breathing even, mind focused. It had been over an hour since the lights had been knocked out while she was reading in her room, startling her nearly as badly as the subsequent eruption of screaming that broke out on the first floor. It was time for Angel to be strong now, for See-More's sake, and for the others'. She wasn't going to be a child about this.

"Gawd..." See-More muttered weakly, voice barely audible over the awful racket the generator made as it was starting up again. "Y'all need to find another way to do this, Gizmo. I don't think I can't keep it up anymore."

Geo-Force gave the younger boy a sympathetic look, glancing over at Gizmo at the control panel. "Isn't there _any_ other way to keep this thing running?"

Gizmo, who was working frantically to stabilize the generator core, paused just long enough to shoot the rest of them a filthy glare. "Sure thing, rocks-for-brains," he snapped at Geo-Force. "Go out and find me another source of xenothium ions, and I can probably power this piece-of-shit generator for another whole year. Until then, we're just gonna have to keep making do with See-More's snot-fuckin' helmet and hope it doesn't kill him."

"Don't even joke about that," See-More moaned. "I really do feel like I'm dying."

The arguing, combined with the noise from the generator, was becoming too much. Having the lights back on had been a big help in steadying Angel's nerves, but between her, Geo-Force, See-More, Gizmo, and Jinx all being crammed together inside this tiny engineering closet, and the awful mechanical whining and groaning tearing through the air, she felt on the verge of an anxiety attack.

"Geo-Force, let's get him back to the infirmary," she said, as loudly as she could manage, nodding once to indicate See-More's weakened state. "...If you please."

Jinx nodded wordlessly, indicating they were free to leave. Together, Angel and Geo-Force carefully carted See-More from the room, moving slowly in order to avoid aggravating his migraine.

Out of the corner of one eye, Angel thought she saw Jinx place a hand on Gizmo's shoulder as they stood together by the generator. Then, the two were out of sight, leaving Angel and Geo-Force to steer See-More through dimly flickering hallways of their run-down base until they finally reached the shabby room that passed for the Outsiders' medical bay.

—

They laid See-More down on the shabby examiners' table, covered with sofa cushions in the absence of medical bedding. Having his weight off her shoulders helped enormously in easing the tension that gripped Angel by the chest, though the quiet was an even bigger relief. She walked over to the cabinets to retrieve some blankets and a pillow for him.

"Thank you for your help," she said softly to Geo-Force, glancing over at where the geokinetic stood by the bed. See-More had blacked out almost immediately after they'd removed his helmet, replacing it with a pair of black glasses, so all they could do for now was keep him comfortable. "Usually we ask Mammoth to do our heavy lifting, but he won't leave Shimmer's side after what happened tonight. Jinx said Billy went back to his room after the power went out as well. I suppose he must have gotten bored."

Geo-Force nodded at her with a tired smile. "Something like that," he said, yawning tiredly. "Billy said there was nothing else for it but to go to sleep, since there was no way to watch TV or see his way to the kitchen to get himself a drink. He made it sounds like this happens a lot, Angel. Is See-More going to be all right?"

Angel bit her lip, clasping her hands nervously in front of her. "He's always been fine before," she said evasively, still focused inwardly on her beating heart. "I don't know when the migraines started, but he's been having them since before I got here. A few months, at least. They come and go in spells, and he can't use his helmet without making the pain worse. But his helmet is what powers the generator...we're incredibly lucky to have him as a fuel source."

"Yeah." Geo-Force's smile faded, and he cast a concerned glance down at See-More on the bed. "So I've heard. You people have been using him as a living xenothium factory."

Angel's pulse quickened. "It was nothing he didn't agree to," she said immediately, trying to convey the urgency in her words without making them sound too defensive. "It's something his body produces naturally. Gizmo said—"

"Gizmo's a kid. You're _all_ kids."

Angel turned away from him, putting a hand over her chest. Her heartbeat just wouldn't slow down. The lights were back on, but she still felt trapped in the dark.

"I just turned eighteen, thank you very much," she said to Geo-Force, more sharply than she'd intended. "Our situation might seem difficult now, but trust me, we have everything under control. See-More will be fine. We're all going to fine, and we've all survived _much_ worse than a damn broken generator—"

"Angel—"

"—and it's not like there are any options _better_ without us having to end up in jail, or serving yet another _deceitful_—"

"_Angel!_"

The world went white; all Angel registered was a dizzy whirlwind of the floor spinning up to meet her. Geo-Force shouted something at her from across the room but the words didn't quite take, drowned by the sound of her own deafening heartbeat and the flashes of heat and ice wracking their way down her back.

"C-Claustrophobia," she gasped out painfully while the room spun and liquified around her. "I get this sometimes—when I remember we're living underground...I'm so sorry, I'm sorry."

"Angel, it's okay—"

"It's those damn _Titans_," she sobbed, burying her face in his shoulder as Geo-Force stroked her hair. "I hate this, I don't want to live like this, but there's nowhere else for people like us to go. They took the sky away. We stay here in the ground, and if we ever go outside it's because we're running, running to get something else or sell it back. I want to fly again."

"Angel, shh."

She cried and cried. Geo-Force held her, told her it was okay, that she was going to be fine, and eventually she felt him pick her up and carry her to the other cot. She felt ashamed of herself for acting like this, this but it was all right, too, because the fingers stroking through her hair were worn and calloused and she knew he understood how it felt when life ground you down and wore you to the bone.

Angel fell asleep with a smile and tears on her face, and a nagging thought; that someone ought to check in on Wykkyd tonight before he went to sleep.


	4. Ain't No Rest For

**A/N:** Please leave a review if you're able. Even if it's just to tell me what you hated, or didn't quite understand, I really, really would like to read other people's opinions on this story. I might make some revisions to this chapter soon for spelling and grammar, but the thematic elements are what I'm really concerned about.

**Arc One, Chapter 3**  
><strong>Title:<strong> Ain't No Rest For...  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Kyd Wykkyd, Jinx, See-More (mentioned), Geo-Force (mentioned), Professor Chang (mentioned)  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Jinx needs a favor. Kyd Wykkyd needs a distraction.  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> Ooh boy. This chapter contains references to long-term anxiety and paranoia, drug use/abuse, binge drinking, eating disorders, substance addiction, and several other unspecified destructive behavior(s). My purpose in writing about these is _not_ to glorify or romanticize any of them. Trust me, I know EXACTLY how terrible these sorts of habits can be in a person's life, and in other lives around them. I know.

* * *

><p><strong>ARC ONE: THE OUTSIDERS<strong>

_Ain't No Rest For..._

Kyd Wykkyd didn't bother attempting to sleep that night, or the night after that. He'd fled the lounge halfway through _Mindcreep_, teleporting himself back to his room on the base's sublevel and barricading himself inside with the lights out. He needed a dark and quiet space to dispel the terrible thoughts and memories conjured up by the movie, of Brother Blood, and—and Psimon. Wykkyd was too worked up to care, if any of his teammates had seen him leave or might remember.

Once safely in his room, he tried his best to meditate for an hour or so, but to no avail: with his quarters dark, he might not have noticed the base's power going out, but the sounds of shouting downstairs ruined what little concentration he had. His hearing was too sensitive to drown out the others or ignore them. In a fit of temper, Wykkyd considered returning downstairs to make his teammates suffer personally for bothering him when he was already on edge, but the rational side of him said that was a stupid idea. He had to figure out some other way, to dispel the twisted feelings eating him up inside.

There were a few guilty indulgences that made him feel better when he got like this. The easiest one was usually Agent H, a specialty drug once produced by the H.I.V.E. and now made exclusively by Professor Chang, though not without relative impurities. Wykkyd had already tried raiding the infirmary and the others' bedrooms earlier in the week and found nothing left of the drug, which meant that the previous month's supply was already completely used up. The lack of it made Wykkyd want to scream in frustration, though he kept his temper reined in. He'd done a decent job so far of hiding from the other Outsiders how badly he relied on the low-grade Agent H they bought every month, and how much of a typical four-week's supply went to him and him alone. A bad movie that reminded him of a few old horrors shouldn't have been enough to evaporate the remains of his self-control.

Without the drug, however, Wykkyd lacked too many other reliable coping mechanisms. He supposed he could swallow the remains of his pride, and go up to the infirmary to sleep with See-More in his cot, but the power outage meant the others would come that way to find him at some point. See-More was the only one capable of repowering the generator. Kyd Wykkyd didn't want to risk an encounter with the remaining Outsiders when he was like this, not least because he might be expected to them help out until the power was restored. He rarely felt like being productive on his best days without Agent H, and in a bad headspace he didn't trust himself not to be cross with anyone who brought up the suggestion. With his usual level of expressiveness bordering in the area between "mild, friendly gestures" and "impassive poker face," copping an attitude would catch the others' attention. Kyd Wykkyd didn't want that.

He supposed there were other ways to curb his inner demons, though all of them carried certain risks. For one, Wykkyd _hated_ drinking, perhaps solely among the Outsiders—he hated the loss of lucidity and control alcohol brought on, hated that it made him so uninhibited with his inner nature. Mostly, he hated how _good_ it felt to be drunk. He had an addictive personality, and knew he couldn't afford to go casually picking up vices, the way his teammates had over the years. Drinking, clubbing, cigarettes, recreational drugs...even binging and purging on occasion, when Mammoth thought nobody was paying attention. Kyd Wykkyd had no intention of indulging in any of that. He had his caffeine addition, and he had Agent H, and that was it. He had a hard time managing even those.

There was one vice he had left. Kyd Wykkyd grappled with himself for a few hours before he finally surrendered, pulling out the necessary tools from the caches hollowed out inside the walls. If Angel knew what he was doing, she wouldn't hesitate to confiscate everything. Wykkyd didn't want a repeat of last time.

—

Luckily—or perhaps unluckily—the power outage saw See-More, Jinx, and Angel all too busy to check up on Kyd Wykkyd over the course of the following two days. Mammoth and the others certainly weren't going to bother with it; though to be fair, Geo-Force might have at least tried if he knew how to find anything in the lower levels of the base. For better or worse, ultimately Wykkyd was left alone to deal with his inner demons for the duration. He did so in the only way he knew how.

By the time anyone came to search for him in his room, all evidence of his troublesome activities were long since hidden. Wykkyd hadn't slept in 48 hours by that point, though he felt calmer and more in control than he had since seeing _Mindcreep_. He figured sleeping now would only be an open invitation for his unwanted memories to catch him off-guard in the form nightmares, so any distraction that would keep him awake would be welcomed.

"Hey," Jinx said to him as Kyd opened the door for her. Rather than continuing right away, she let herself inside his room and ignored his staring upon her back, her catlike eyes surveying the disastrous state of his lightless abode.

"Man, you really don't _ever_ clean up the place, do you?" Jinx said, rather matter-of-factly. "At least Mammoth has his sister to pick up after him when he makes a mess..."

Kyd Wykkyd folded his arms and waited for her to get to the point. He was partly glad to see her, but also partly annoyed at having her judging the state of his room. After another moment, Jinx turned around and faced Wykkyd directly, jerking her head silently toward the door to indicate she wanted it closed for privacy.

"Thanks," she said heavily as Kyd Wykkyd obediently shut the door and locked it behind him. "Hey, I've got a favor to ask. What've you got going on today?"

Kyd shrugged noncommittally, as if to say,_ Nothing._ _Why?_

Jinx smirked at him, snapping back to her usual air of bossiness.

"Excellent. I've got to head into the city today to see Professor Chang, about buying us some Agent H for this month," she said. "Gizmo says we're fresh out again. Ever since that whole thing with the Titans, Chang's been trying to rip me off every time I go to see him one-on-one. Usually, I'd just send See-More or Gizmo to deal with him, since they both speak his technobabble better than I do, but the two of them are stuck here at the base until our generator stabilizes. The tracking system says all the Titans are all on the other side of town fighting Cinderblock, so I need someone to come out with me while the coast is clear. As far as I know, _you're_ the only one that Chang is still afraid of on our team."

Kyd Wykkyd smirked internally at her words, though on the surface he carefully pretended to consider the proposition before nodding. It was rare that Jinx came to him specifically to ask for help, which was exactly the way he liked it, but in this case he would gladly make an exception. Agent H was all he'd been thinking about lately, aside from Psimon, and there wasn't a lot Kyd _wouldn't_ do to dispel his awful memories of the latter. Even visiting Chang's lab up on the surface had to be better than waiting down here in perpetual boredom.

When he'd given his assent, Jinx smiled again, pointing down at an angle toward the floor. "Mind if we take the 'shortcut' to the garage?" she asked, gesturing toward his cape. "I'm not gonna ask you to teleport us all the way to the border to Chang's, but if we have to drive, I'd rather that the others didn't see us leave. They might start...you know, asking questions. This way'll be a lot easier."

Kyd Wykkyd hesitated. His powers had been getting more unpredictable as of late, and on a day with no sleep and zero meditation, weakened as he was, there was a definite chance that some unexpected mishap might occur. Jinx, seeing him pause, seemed to mistake his hesitation for a question.

"It isn't any of their business, that's all!" she insisted, folding her arms defensively over her chest. "What's it to you?"

...Well, _now_ he was definitely curious. Wykkyd stared openly at Jinx, waiting to see if she would elaborate, and she didn't disappoint him: with a hard sigh, she dropped her hands to her sides and relented with a grudging glare.

"Okay, it's _mostly_ Geo-Force I don't want to know about this," she said shortly. "I brought him in, so he's my responsibility, all right? I'm still trying to figure out how good he is with all the..._stuff_ that we do around here. He says he doesn't have any memories before a few weeks ago, but it _can't_ be amnesia, it's too convenient and stupid and Angel _said_ his other symptoms don't match up at all. I want to know what's up with this guy before we start to really trust him. The less he knows about where we go and how we get around outside the base, the better. At least for now."

She made no mention of Agent H specifically, but Kyd Wykkyd caught her meaning anyway.

_The fewer people that know half our team's addicted to experimental amphetamines, the better. Agent H may be our greatest liability.  
><em>

Nodding his solemn agreement, Kyd Wykkyd reluctantly opened his cape and opened a rift in the shadows, teleporting the two of them discreetly to the base's garage.

The sick part was how excited he still was about the trip.

* * *

><p><strong>Character Notes<strong>

_Psimon_ – A psychic villain who had a small role in the Brotherhood of Evil arc of Season 5, and made several later appearances in _Teen Titans Go!_ as a recruiter for a new team of villains formed in conjunction with Dr. Light.


	5. Missing

**A/N:** This chapter is our introduction to Shimmer, Mammoth's sister, who is originally from DC comics. Like Geo-Force, I included her because I thought she brought a certain dynamic to the ensemble cast that would be missing without her. Also like Geo-Force, Shimmer is a relative newcomer to the "life" of crime and villainy in this universe. Unlike him, she has no problem changing herself to reflect what the people around her want to see. She cares, very deeply and very loyally, about other people, and she is perfectly happy to let the world around her believe mistakenly that this somehow makes her less dangerous instead of more.

Reviews are adored and appreciated! Please, let me know what you think about this story. It doesn't have to be nice.

**Arc One, Chapter 4**  
><strong>Title:<strong> Missing  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Shimmer, Mammoth, Jinx, Gizmo, Paper (mentioned), Sergeant H.I.V.E. (mentioned), Scissors (mentioned), Rock (mentioned)  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Shimmer tries to be patient early one morning, while Jinx and Gizmo search for clues regarding a disappeared former teammate.  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> Recreational drug use, implied codependence.

* * *

><p><strong>ARC ONE: THE OUTSIDERS<strong>

_Missing_

It wasn't often that Shimmer woke up before sunrise, but the sounds of Mammoth's gargantuan snoring were enough to wake up anyone.

"_Baraaan_," she whined at her brother loudly, kicking him in the shins from the opposite side of the mattress. "Baran, c'mon, shut it. It's too early for this..."

Of course he didn't awaken. Mammoth slept like the dead.

Shimmer moodily turned her back on him and curled up on her side, tossing and turning fruitlessly for a half hour with her head buried beneath a stack of pillows. She refused to admit that she might as well just get up for the day. Sleep was important, dammit; whatever the monks at the monastery would have said. These days, Shimmer took care to stay in bed till noon at every opportunity. It was what real American teenagers did.

Finally, though, irritation with the noise won out. At the stroke of six, Shimmer reluctantly sat up with a grunt of annoyance, giving her sleeping brother a hard shove on his side of the mattress (that went ignored). Pulling her blankets off, she clambered reluctantly out of bed and stomped over to her closet to get dressed. Grumpiness made her clothing selection lazy, even by her standards, but since there was no one around to impress she didn't care. Donned in an oversize yellow T-shirt and a pair of particularly hideous orange bicycle shorts, Shimmer clicked the metal wrist braces that controlled her powers into place and stepped out of the room alone.

—

The sounds of businesslike voices drew her footsteps down the hall, all the way toward the central command room. Upon entering, she saw Jinx and Gizmo engaged in conversation by the base's main supercomputer, Gizmo seated at the helm of the control panel and Jinx perched standing behind him. Both of them held large mugs of coffee in their hands and had bags under their eyes, meaning they could have been up all night. All H.I.V.E. kids were crazy. Shimmer saw an unlabeled bottle of pills sitting open on the desk before them, probably full of Secret H or whatever the others called it. Neither of the two senior members of the team noticed Shimmer walking into the room.

"...So that's it, then." Jinx's voice was flat.

Gizmo's face scrunched up in a scowl. "Well, if she's _in_ prison, it ain't anywhere in Jump City," he said. "I've searched every database, hacked every security feed, and impersonated every lousy jail warden and police officer in a thirty-mile radius. I got nothin'. Nobody's seen her."

"Seen who?" Shimmer piped up, walking over with a sudden hopeful feeling. "Are you guys looking for Paper?"

She'd been practically begging them to, ever since the older girl disappeared. Jinx had promised not to give up, and Shimmer found herself hoping she really meant it. Things weren't the same without her.

Jinx and Gizmo turned to look. "Oh. Hey, Shimmer," Jinx said, blinking back surprise. "Yeah, we're on Paper's trail now...sort of. After what happened with I.N.S.T.I.G.A.T.O.R. and Wrestling Star, we all kind of assumed she got captured by the Titans and taken to jail. But apparently that's not the case.."

"There's no record of anyone arresting her," Gizmo finished, downing the rest of his coffee in a single gulp. "So, looks like either someone else besides the Titans found her first, or she friggin' ran away herself. My money's on the second one. She always was too prissy to hang out with us."

Shimmer narrowed her eyes, suddenly feeling very much awake. "No," she said forcefully, stomping over to the computer screen to check his results for herself. "No, no, no. That's impossible! Paper went missing on a heist, so the Titans _had_ to have gotten her. You're just not looking hard enough, Gizmo!"

He sneered. "Oh yeah, glitter guts?" he said. "Then explain _this_."

He pressed a button on the computer panel. On cue, a newspaper article appeared on the mounted flat-screen above their heads on the wall, blaring the headline _TEEN METAHUMANS STAGE ESCAPE AT JUMP CITY JUVENILE PENITENTIARY_. With a few rapid clicks of the mouse, Gizmo zoomed in on a couple of color mugshots displayed alongside the article. The first showed a skinny, violet-haired boy with a crooked mouth and some nasty-looking cuts on his face, and the second featured a hulking, dark-haired brunette girl built like an oak tree with pink barrettes in her hair. Both youths were clad in orange prison uniforms, glaring at the camera with surly expressions of dislike.

"Check it," Gizmo was saying smugly. "See these two ugly sons of bitches? Those are Scissors and Rock, Paper's old running buddies from H.I.V.E. Academy. Trust me, they're every bit as stupid as their dorky-sounding names. Anyway, the report says that they both got busted outta jail three weeks ago with the help of some metahuman on the outside. I'll give ya three guesses who it was!"

Shimmer scowled and folded her arms. "No. Even if they did escape, Paper had nothing to do with it," she said, refusing to look at him. "She told me about those guys. They were jerks and they _betrayed_ her. She wouldn't have busted them out of jail!"

"Maybe she lied," Gizmo said. "Bitches like that always lie. They think it's fun."

Shimmer narrowed her eyes. She was unaware that, along with her power-bracelets, both her eyes had begun to glow white with her power.

Gizmo was _wrong,_ she thought. He had to be!

"You don't know what you're talking about," she finally hissed, spinning his chair around to face her in a simmering rage. "Paper didn't _lie_. She didn't go to break her teammates out of jail. The _Titans_ caught her. The Titans did this!"

Shimmer had to believe it. She had to believe that Paper wouldn't lie to her. Because Paper was fun, and cool, and she hung out with Shimmer, even when everyone else besides Mammoth was treating her like an annoying little girl. Paper taught her how to apply makeup, how to style her hair, how to tell whether or not a pair of shoes matched perfectly with your outfit. Paper showed her how to flirt with boys, instead of being scared of them, or acting stupid, and she took Shimmer out to rave parties in the big city even when Mammoth would have said no. She introduced Shimmer to coke, and ecstasy, and she held back her sweat-soaked hair at three in the morning when the younger girl was puking out her guts and her big brother was fast asleep, absolutely not allowed to know.

Jinx was perfect and dangerous and intimidating, and Angel standoffish, but Paper was _nice:_ even when she was sometimes mean, or rude, or lazy, or flighty, or easily bored. The older girl wasn't always friendly to Shimmer, but she had still given the younger exactly what she needed after the monastery fire, and Psimon, and the broken glass incident and the difficult journey to America.

Mammoth protected Shimmer always, kept her safe, but Paper was the one who made her dangerous. Shimmer knew that people that acted 'good' got buried in the underground, even if they weren't really and just didn't know how to express what they felt inside. Paper taught her how to act, how to fit in, among these terrifying people her own age that broke the law and worked together but didn't seem trust anyone but themselves. Paper showed her what it meant to be an Outsider. To be a bad person.

And now she was gone.

Shimmer snapped out of these miserable thoughts only when Jinx fired off a warning hex at her feet, startling her into motion.

"Cool it," the enchantress said warningly, gesturing toward Shimmer's glowing wrist braces. "This place is crummy _enough_ without people trying to wreck it."

Shimmer glanced down at her hands and gasped. She hadn't even realized that she was using her powers.

"Sorry! Oh, no, I'm sorry! Really!" she stammered, her anger at Gizmo forgotten. Shimmer shook out her hands frantically, trying to make the glowing whiteness in them go away before something nearby got turned into something else. "Sorry, Jinx! It won't happen again! This time, I _promise._"

"Yeah, well, see that it doesn't," Jinx said, though her her voice was light. She then rounded on Gizmo. "And she's right, you know—at least about one thing. Even if Paper's disappearance at the exact same time as those stooges' escape _is_ a pretty big coincidence, it doesn't automatically mean that she's the one responsible. I mean, think about it: how many jobs did Paper take on the entire time she was living here with us? She wasn't the type to go looking for action. Not after that whole debacle with the first Fearsome Five, anyway."

"Hey, I _said_ don't bring that up ever!" Gizmo snarled, making an obscene gesture with his free hand. "That gig was the pits!"

"Sorry. My point is, if Paper really wanted to break her friends out of jail, she'd have asked us for help," Jinx said, placing a thoughtful hand on her chin. "And I'm not so convinced she really _wanted_ to. Like Shimmer said, there didn't seem to be much love lost among those three. I get the impression that Paper's grudge against Scissors was pretty personal."

Gizmo folded his arms crossly. "So what?" he snapped. "Even if she didn't break those eggheads outta prison, we've still got no friggin' clue of where she is. I'm an engineer, not a detective!"

"Then we'll just have to keep searching until we find something," Jinx said lightly. She turned to smile faintly over at Shimmer. "After all. We did promise."

Shimmer blushed and smiled back.

Jinx hummed, sounding contemplative. "Do we still have the number for the H.I.V.E. Academy 2.0?" she suddenly asked Gizmo. "_We_ may be short on ideas for the moment, but I believe that a certain sergeant might be able to help us search in the meantime. Let's give him a call."

Gizmo's eyes bugged out incredulously as he spat coffee all over the control panel. "Sergeant H.I.V.E.?!" he spluttered in disbelief, nearly coughing out the words. "Helmet head? You're askin' _him?_"

"Yeah, I am," she said matter-of-factly. "The guy might be a blowhard with a stick the size of Titans Tower up his ass, but at least he likes us. Sergeant H.I.V.E. wouldn't rat us out to the Titans for a bribe, or any of of the new villains trying to move in on Jump City territory. Plus, from what I hear, those Army Brats of his are the real deal. He runs the new academy like a military school, and it's getting results. We may have misjudged him."

"_God fucking_ _stupid_...FINE," Gizmo grumbled, clicking open a video conference program that appeared on the large-screen monitor. "But if that guy asks us to join his lame kiss-ass cadet squad one more time, I am _so_ outta here!"

"Deal," Jinx said, leaning easily on the back of his chair. "Put him on."

Shimmer, still feeling a little despondent and lonely about Paper, decided she didn't really want to stick around for the call. "Uh, you guys let me know how it goes, okay?" she said, stepping back nervously toward the hall. "Now that I'm up, I think I...I've got some things I want to do today. Personal stuff. I'll see you later."

Jinx gave the younger girl a puzzled look, but made no comment to question her. "Okay," she said, turning her attention fully toward the screen. "Remember—if you're going up top to the city, take someone else with you. I promised Mammoth we'd keep you safe."

Gizmo snorted. "Ape face," he said derisively under his breath.

Shimmer's body went rigid. She stopped walking, metal braces on her wrists flickering white with contained energy.

"What was that?" she asked carefully, turning partway to affix Gizmo with a blank expression. "_What_ did you say about my brother?"

Gizmo's eyes widened a fraction of a second before he broke her stare, turning abruptly to busy himself with the computer controls.

"What're you talkin' about? I didn't say nothin'!" he insisted too quickly, tone strained and overly defensive. "'Specially not about kludgin' _Mammoth_. You're hearin' things, glitter guts."

Shimmer relaxed, allowing herself a faint smile. "Good," she said, pleasantly, turning away from him toward the hall. "That's what I thought."

She left.

* * *

><p><strong>Character Notes<strong>

_Rock & Scissors_ – Like Paper, these two H.I.V.E. students debuted in _Teen Titans Go!_ and never made an official show appearance. Rock was a giantess of a girl with superhuman strength, and Scissors was the only boy of the team with the ability to grow his hands into claws. Interestingly, Scissors' purple hair and grey skin tone make him look an awful lot like Raven in guy-grunge.

_Sergeant H.I.V.E._ – Private H.I.V.E. gave himself this new title as a "promotion" in the final issues of _Teen Titans Go!_, which featured a short arc about his character growth. After being betrayed by General Immortus and getting some well-meaning words of encouragement from Robin, Private H.I.V.E. decided to rebuild H.I.V.E. Academy, the only place that he had ever felt truly at home. Recruiting kids off the streets in desperate need of protection and guidance, Sergeant H.I.V.E. trained them to be a new class of "Army Brats" who were capable of defending themselves and even matching the Titans. Unlike Brother Blood and General Immortus, however, Sergeant H.I.V.E. vowed to be a good leader and to never abandon his men. His recruits were fanatically loyal in kind.


	6. Naked

**A/N:** Not much to add for this chapter that doesn't speak for itself, but as always, PLEASE leave a review and let me know what you think of the story thus far (good or bad). Big shout-out/thank you to reviewers sam and XxToxiceXclairageXx, for leaving comments on the last couple of chapters that made me smile a lot. I appreciate it!

**Arc One, Chapter 5**  
><strong>Title:<strong> Naked  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Billy Numerous, Shimmer, Angel, Punk Rocket (mentioned), Kyd Wykkyd (mentioned)  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Billy is drunk. Far too drunk for this shit. Find somebody else.  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> Suggestive themes, mentions of harassment, hideously awkward teenagers, DUI.

* * *

><p><strong>ARC ONE: THE OUTSIDERS<strong>

_Naked_

For a number of complicated reasons that didn't really bear going into, Billy Numerous was not (and would never be) an expert on the female sex. He had no particular interest in women, and even less so in examining whatever qualities, real or imagined, made them different from men or from anybody else. Girls were, to him, you know, _whatever_. Living with girls was also, well, generally whatever; at least most of the time.

Then you had mornings like today.

"What...in _seven hells_," Billy groaned with some difficulty, pressing his palms over his eyes to make the room stop spinning from residual drunkenness, "are you crazy bitches...doin' in my room...at ten o'clock _in the_ _mornin'_ on a SUNDAY!"

Shimmer did not have the grace to look ashamed. "Hurry up and get undressed!" she said with obscene zeal, pulling Billy's arm so hard to get him moving that his shoulder joint was strained in its socket. At some point, she had taken the liberty of unfastening his zipper partway in the back of his bodysuit, probably before he'd actually regained consciousness. "We need to go up to the city today. You're coming."

"What? No. Fuck off!"

"Come on!" Shimmer pleaded, now swinging his arm back and forth with no regard for how nauseous every movement made him feel with the hangover. "There's someone I gotta meet with who _might_ know about Paper, and Angel won't take me to where he lives unless you or one of the guys comes along. I promise, it'll only take a little while. And I'll totally pay you back. Whatever you want! Now take your arms out of your sleeves."

"Please, Billy. Just do us this favor," Angel chimed in, holding up her palm before his face with four ibuprofen and a cigarette. Billy immediately seized upon the latter, fumbling drunkenly in the bedsheets for his lighter, which Angel seemed to construe as permission to continue. "This guy is a meta like us, and a villain, and I _really_ just cannot stand being near him without having someone else there for backup. He's a huge creep and I'd feel a lot more comfortable if you were there."

Billy finally found his dollar-store lighter in the blankets and lit up, shakily dragging on his cigarette and blowing out the smoke before summoning a clone. The new Billy took the cigarette from him, then offered it back to Angel, who gratefully accepted it and took a long drag while the original was tossing back the ibuprofen she had brought. Billy washed it down with a swig of leftover beer, mostly for lack of anything else, and Shimmer left the group to walk over to Billy's closet. He saw her wrinkle her nose in disgust, at the smell of unwashed bodysuits. He owned more than one but that didn't mean he ever washed them.

"Right. So," Billy said after finishing the medicine, swilling around his stale beer in its can before tossing it aside. "...Run all this by me one more time? Why'm ah gettin' naked?"

"City. Dealer. Creeper, need information," Shimmer announced, walking over from the closet and tossing something at his head that turned out to be an old red hoodie and a pair of jeans Billy doubted he'd ever worn. "Take that suit off and pull yourself back together, Billy. We're going in civvies."

Billy reluctantly pulled down the hood of his bodysuit, groaning and rubbing his eyes. He'd passed out maybe four hours ago, tops, after drinking himself stupid with Mammoth and a TV wrestling match. Billy couldn't decide if he was still drunk enough to ride out the oncoming hangover with more liquor. "Y'all _know_ ah can't duplicate without my suit, don'tcha?" he finally asked, starting to pull his arms through the sleeves. "Ah feel naked without it."

"Uh-huh," Shimmer said, watching with interest as he pulled his torso free of his suit. "That's freaky, I guess, but whatever. So?"

"_So_, how'm ah supposed to protect y'all from this bad bubba single-handed? Y'all know Billy Numerous don't work alone."

"We know. Punk Rocket doesn't," Angel said, placing her hands on her hips. Billy noticed belatedly that she was dressed in civilian clothes, low-cut blue jeans and a fitted T-shirt in solid red and blue emblazoned with a white star on the front. "He was working for the Brotherhood of Evil back when we did, so he probably remembers you, even if he doesn't know exactly what your powers are. He deals drugs now, Paper bought from him, which is why we wanted to talk to him in the first place. But he's just as much of a skeeze now as he was before. The most important thing about you coming is that you're male. Punk probably won't try anything...inappropriate, if we bring you along."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. But why _me?_" Billy demanded, angrily stripping down to his birthday suit with only a mild loss of balance standing upright. He was too far gone from last night for any semblance of modesty; besides, it wasn't like his regular undergarments would have replicated the same way he did. You just didn't live in close quarters with other people for years and years and not get used to these things happening. "Jinx'll go with ya, if you ask 'er nice; See-More, too. And yer brother's _way_ bigger 'n scarier than the likes of me, Shimmer."

"Jinx is busy with Gizmo, and See-More can't leave the base in case the generator messes up again," Shimmer said, looking sidelong at Billy with an intrigued glance that flew right over his head. "Mammoth's still asleep. He's not great at the whole civilian act anyway, poor guy. His old clothes barely fit him."

"Then how 'bout Geo-Force? He likes ya both," Billy said, with increasing desperation.

"Well, that's the problem with him, isn't it?" Angel said, holding up a hand in front of her eyes so she didn't have to see him naked. "Geo-Force likes everyone, or at least he knows how to get along. He isn't exactly...I mean, what's _he_ going to do, if Rocket pulls something dangerous or disgusting on us in his apartment? The last thing Geo wants is to start a fight with anyone. His powers are too big."

"Get Wykkyd, then! He'll put the fear o' god into anyone!" Billy said, gesturing wildly with the sleeves of his newly donned hoodie to make a point. "Get in, get out, _boom_. Done an' done!"

Angel's expression didn't change, but Billy thought he saw her posture stiffen.

"I don't think that's a very good..." she began in a strained voice.

"Oh, come on," Billy interrupted, grabbing himself another beer from the case on the floor as he zipped his jeans. "We all know Kyd Wykkyd does scary like nobody else. And he ain't gonna let no mac daddy put the moves on _you_ of all people. Ain't you two got that thing goin' on, or whatever?"

"What? No!" Angel said too quickly, wings fluttering visibly beneath her shirt. "No, we do not! And I didn't ask Kyd because it wouldn't be fair, to bring him along and have him see Rocket acting like a—look, I just don't want him to feel like, as though he _has_ to, you know, I don't even want to talk about this anymore. Will you PLEASE just come with us so we can get the whole thing over with and come back to the base before anyone else finds out?"

Billy blinked. "You're fuckin' _weird_, Angel," he said.

Shimmer huffed. "Both of you just shut up and come on!" she demanded, grabbing both of them by the hand and marching them forcibly to the door. "Billy, hurry up and finish that beer. You're driving!"

Billy shook his head in bewilderment and acquiesced, trying to keep the contents of his stomach settled as he chugged his beer and tossed the can behind him. Some Sunday morning this turned out to be.

_Women,_ he thought disparagingly. _Wake up to 'em asking you to get naked, and it still finds a way to blow corn husks. Bet you anything See-More would've had a field day with this.  
><em>


End file.
